A YOUNG HERO;

OR,

Fighting to Win.

By EDWARD S. ELLIS,

Author of

"Adrift in the Wilds," etc., etc.

ILLUSTRATED.

NEW YORK: A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER.

[Pg 4]

Copyright 1888, by A. L. Burt.

CHAPTER I. THE PEACEMAKER.

"A fight! A fight! Form a ring!" A dozen or more excited boys shouted these words, and, rushing forward, hastily formed a ring around two playmates who stood in the middle of the road, their hats off, eyes glaring, fists clenched, while they panted with anger, and were on the point of flying at one another with the fury of young wildcats.

They had been striking, kicking and biting a minute before over some trifling dispute, and they had now stopped to take breath and gather strength before attacking each other again with a fierceness which had become all the greater from the brief rest.

"Give it to him, Sam! Black his eyes for him! Hit him under the ear! Bloody his nose!"

Thus shouted the partisans of Sammy McClay, who had thrown down his school books, and pitched into his opponent, as though he meant to leave nothing of him.

The friends of Joe Hunt were just as loud and urgent.

"Sail in, Joe! You can whip him before he knows it! Kick him! Don't be a coward! You've got him!"

[Pg 6]

A party of boys and girls were on their way home from the Tottenville public school, laughing, romping and frolicking with each other, when, all at once, like a couple of bantam chickens, these two youngsters began fighting.

The girls looked on in a horrified way, whispering to each other, and declaring that they meant to tell Mr. McCurtis, the teacher, including also the respective mothers of the young pugilists.

The other boys, as is nearly always the case, did their utmost to urge on the fight, and, closing about Sam and Joe, taunted them in loud voices, and appealed to them to resume hostilities at once.

The fighters seemed to be equally matched, and, as they panted and glared, each waited for the other to renew the struggle by striking the first blow.

"You just hit me if you dare! that's all I want!" exclaimed Sammy McClay, shaking his head so vigorously that he almost bumped his nose against that of Joe Hunt, who was just as ferocious, as he called back:

"You touch me, Sam McClay, just touch me! I dare you! double, double dare you."

Matters were fast coming to the exploding point, but not fast enough to suit the audience. Jimmy Emery picked up a chip, and running forward, balanced it in a delicate position on the shoulder of Sam McClay, and, addressing his opponent said: "Knock that off, Joe!"

"Yes, knock it off!" shouted Sam, "I dare you to knock it off!"

"Who's afraid?" demanded Joe, looking at the chip,[Pg 7] with an expression which showed he meant to flip it to the ground.

"Well, you just try it—that's all!"

Joe was in the very act of upsetting the bit of wood, when a boy about their own age, with a flapping straw hat, and with his trousers rolled far above his knees, ran in between the two, and used his arms with so much vigor that the contestants were thrown quite a distance apart.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" demanded this boy, glancing from one to the other. "What do you want to make fools of yourselves for?"

"He run against me," said Sammy McClay, "and knocked me over Jim Emery."

"Well, what of it?" asked the peacemaker. "Will it make you feel any better to get your head cracked? What's the matter of you, Joe Hunt?" he added, turning his glance without changing his position, toward the other pugilist.

"What did he punch me for, when I stubbed my toe and run agin him?" and Joe showed a disposition just then to move around his questioner, so as to get at the offender.

The other boys did not like this interference with their enjoyment, and called on the peacemaker to let them have it out; but he stood his ground, and shaking his right fist at Sammy McClay, and his left at Joe Hunt, he told them they must let each other alone, or he would whip them both.

This created some laughter, for the lad was no older[Pg 8] than they, and hardly as tall as either; but there is a great deal in the manner of a man or boy. If his flashing eye, his stern voice, and look of determination show that he means what he says, or is in dead earnest, his opponent generally yields.

At the critical juncture, the girls added their voices in favor of peace, and their champion, stooping down, picked up the hats from the ground, and jammed them upon their owners' heads with a force that nearly threw them off their feet.

"That's enough! now come on!"

Sam and Joe walked along, rather sullenly at first. They glowered on each other, shook their heads, muttered and seemed on the point of renewing the contest more than once; but the passions of childhood are brief, and the storm soon blew over. Before the boys and girls had reached the cross-roads, Sam McClay and Joe Hunt were playing with each other like the best of friends, as indeed they were.

The name of the lad who had stopped the fight was Fred Sheldon, and he is the hero of this story.

[Pg 9]

CHAPTER II. THE CALL TO SCHOOL.

Fred Sheldon, as I have said, is the hero of this story.

He was twelve years of age, the picture of rosy health, good nature, bounding spirits and mental strength. He was bright and well advanced in his studies, and as is generally the case with such vigorous youngsters he was fond of fun, which too often, perhaps, passed the line of propriety and became mischief.

On the Monday morning after the fight, which Fred Sheldon interrupted, some ten or twelve boys stopped on their way to the Tottenville Public School to admire in open-mouthed wonder, the gorgeous pictures pasted on a huge framework of boards, put up for the sole purpose of making such a display.

These flaming posters were devoted to setting forth the unparalleled attractions of Bandman's great menagerie and circus, which was announced to appear in the well-known "Hart's Half-Acre," near the village of Tottenville.

These scenes, in which elephants, tigers, leopards, camels, sacred cows, and indeed an almost endless array of animals were shown on a scale that indicated they were as high as a meeting-house, in which the serpents,[Pg 10] it unwound from the trees where they were crushing men and beasts to death, would have stretched across "Hart's Half-Acre" (which really contained several acres), those frightful encounters, in which a man, single-handed, was seen to be spreading death and destruction with a clubbed gun among the fierce denizens of the forest; all these had been displayed on the side of barns and covered bridges, at the cross-roads, and indeed in every possible available space for the past three weeks; and, as the date of the great show was the one succeeding that of which we are speaking, it can be understood that the little village of Tottenville and the surrounding country were in a state of excitement such as had not been known since the advent of the preceding circus.

Regularly every day the school children had stopped in front of the huge bill-board and studied and admired and talked over the great show, while those who expected to go in the afternoon or evening looked down in pity on their less fortunate playmates.

The interest seemed to intensify as the day approached, and, now that it was so close at hand, the little group found it hard to tear themselves away from the fascinating scenes before them.

Down in one corner of the board was the picture of a hyena desecrating a cemetery, as it is well known those animals are fond of doing. This bad creature, naturally enough, became very distasteful to the boys, who showed their ill-will in many ways.

Several almost ruined their new shoes by kicking him, while others had pelted him with stones, and still others,[Pg 11] in face of the warning printed in big letters, had haggled him dreadfully with their jack-knives.

It was a warm summer morning and most of the boys not only were bare-footed, but had their trousers rolled above their knees, and, generally, were without coat or vest.

"To-morrow afternoon the show will be here," said Sammy McClay, smacking his lips and shaking his head as though he tasted a luscious morsel, "and I'm going."

"How are you going," asked Joe Hunt, sarcastically, "when your father said he wouldn't give you the money?"

"Never you mind," was the answer, with another significant shake of the head. "I'm goin'—that's all."

"Goin' to try and crawl under the tent. I know. But you can't do it. You'll get a whack from the whip of the man that's watching that you'll feel for six weeks. Don't I know—'cause, didn't I try it?"

"I wouldn't be such a dunce as you; you got half way under the tent and then stuck fast, so you couldn't go backward or forward, and you begun to yell so you like to broke up the performance, and when the man come along why he had the best chance in the world to cowhide you, and he did it. I think I know a little better than that."

At this moment, Mr. Abijah McCurtis, the school teacher in the little stone school-house a hundred yards away, solemnly lifted his spectacles from his nose to his forehead, and grasping the handle of his large cracked bell walked to the door and swayed it vigorously for a minute or so.

[Pg 12]

This was the regular summons for the boys and girls to enter school, and he had sent forth the unmusical clangor, summer and winter, for a full two-score years.

Having called the pupils together, the pedagogue sat down, drew his spectacles back astride of his nose, and resumed setting copies in the books which had been laid on his desk the day before.

In a minute or so the boys and girls came straggling in, but the experienced eye of the teacher saw that several were missing.

Looking through the open door he discovered where the four delinquent urchins were; they were still standing in front of the great showy placards, studying the enchanting pictures, as they had done so many times before.

They were all talking earnestly, Sammy McClay, Joe Hunt, Jimmy Emery and Fred Sheldon, and they had failed for the first time in their lives to hear the cracked bell.

Most teachers, we are bound to believe, would have called the boys a second time or sent another lad to notify them, but the present chance was one of those which, unfortunately, the old-time pedagogue was glad to have, and Mr. McCurtis seized it with pleasure.

Rising from his seat, he picked up from where it lay across his desk a long, thin switch, and started toward the four barefooted lads, who were admiring the circus pictures.

Nothing could have been more inviting, for, not only were they barefooted, but each had his trousers rolled to[Pg 13] the knee, and Fred Sheldon had drawn and squeezed his so far that they could go no further. His plump, clean legs offered the most inviting temptation to the teacher, who was one of those sour old pedagogues, of the long ago, who delighted in seeing children tortured under the guise of so-called discipline.

"I don't believe in wearing trousers in warm weather," said Fred, when anybody looked wonderingly to see whether he really had such useful garments on, "and that's why I roll mine so high up. Don't you see I'm ready to run into the water, and——"

"How about going through the bushes and briars?" asked Joe Hunt.

"I don't go through 'em," was the crushing answer. "I feel so supple and limber that I just jump right over the top. I tell you, boys, that you ought to see me jump——"

Fred's wish was gratified, for at that moment he gave such an exhibition of jumping as none of his companions had ever seen before. With a shout he sprang high in air, kicking out his bare legs in a frantic way, and ran with might and main for the school-house.

The other three lads did pretty much the same, for the appearance of the teacher among them was made known by the whizzing hiss of his long, slender switch, which first landed on Fred's legs, and was then quickly transferred to the lower limbs of the other boys, the little company immediately heading for the school house, with Fred Sheldon at the front.

Each one shouted, and made a high and frantic leap[Pg 14] every few steps, believing that the teacher was close behind him with upraised stick, and looking for the chance to bring it down with effect.

"I'll teach you not to stand gaping at those pictures," shouted Mr. McCurtis, striding wrathfully after them.

A man three-score years old cannot be expected to be as active as a boy with one-fifth as many years; but the teacher had the advantage of being very tall and quite attenuated, and for a short distance he could outrun any of his pupils.

The plump, shapely legs of Fred Sheldon, twinkling and doubling under him as he ran, seemed to be irresistibly tempting to Mr. McCurtis, who, with upraised switch, dashed for him like a thunder-gust, paying no attention to the others, who ducked aside as he passed.

"It's your fault, you young scapegrace," called out the pursuer, as he rapidly overhauled him; "you haven't been thinking of anything else but circuses for the past month and I mean to whip it out of you—good gracious sakes!"

Fred Sheldon had seen how rapidly the teacher was gaining, and finding there was no escape, resorted to the common trick among boys of suddenly falling flat on his face while running at full speed.

The cruel-hearted teacher at that very moment made a savage stroke, intending to raise a ridge on the flesh of the lad, who escaped it by a hair's breadth, as may be said.

The spiteful blow spent itself in vacancy, and the momentum spun Mr. McCurtis around on one foot, so that[Pg 15] he faced the other way. At that instant his heels struck the prostrate form of the crouching boy, and he went over, landing upon his back, his legs pointing upward, like a pair of huge dividers.

There is nothing a boy perceives so quickly as a chance for fun, and before the teacher could rise, Sammy McClay also went tumbling over the grinning Fred Sheldon, with such violence, indeed, that he struck the bewildered instructor as he was trying to adjust his spectacles to see where he was.

Then came Joe Hunt and Jimmy Emery, and Fred Sheldon capped the climax by running at full speed and jumping on the struggling group, spreading out his arms and legs in the effort to bear them down to the earth.

But the difficulty was that Fred was not very heavy nor bony, so that his presence on top caused very little inconvenience, the teacher rising so hurriedly that Fred fell from his shoulders, and landed on his head when he struck the earth.

The latter was dented, but Fred wasn't hurt at all, and he and his friends scrambled hastily into the school-house, where the other children were in an uproar, fairly dancing with delight at the exhibition, or rather "circus," as some of them called it, which took place before the school-house and without any expense to them.

By the time the discomfited teacher had got upon his feet and shaken himself together, the four lads were in school, busily engaged in scratching their legs and studying their lessons.

[Pg 16]

Mr. McCurtis strode in a minute later switch in hand, and in such a grim mood that he could only quiet his nerves by walking around the room and whipping every boy in it.

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER III. STARTLING NEWS.

Fred Sheldon was the only child of a widow, who lived on a small place a mile beyond the village, and managed to eke out a living thereon, assisted by a small pension from the government, her husband having been killed during the late war.

A half-mile beyond stood a large building, gray with age and surrounded with trees, flowers and climbing vines. The broad bricks of which it was composed were known to have been brought from Holland long before the revolution, and about the time when George Washington was hunting for the cherry-tree with his little hatchet.

In this old structure lived the sisters Perkinpine—Annie and Lizzie—who were nearly seventy years of age. They were twins, had never been married, were generally known to be wealthy, but preferred to live entirely by themselves, with no companion but three or four cats, and not even a watch-dog.

Their ancestors were among the earliest settlers of the section, and the Holland bricks could show where they had been chipped and broken by the bullets of the Indians who howled around the solid old structure,[Pg 18] through the snowy night, as ravenous as so many wolves to reach the cowering women and children within.

The property had descended to the sisters in regular succession, and there could be no doubt they were rich in valuable lands, if in nothing else. Their retiring disposition repelled attention from their neighbors, but it was known there was much old and valuable silver, and most probably money itself, in the house.

Michael Heyland was their hired man, but he lived in a small house some distance away, where he always spent his nights.

Young Fred Sheldon was once sent over to the residence of the Misses Perkinpine after a heavy snowstorm, to see whether he could do anything for the old ladies. He was then only ten years old, but his handsome, ruddy face, his respectful manner, and his cheerful eagerness to oblige them, thawed a great deal of their natural reserve, and they gradually came to like him.

He visited the old brick house quite often, and frequently bore substantial presents to his mother, though, rather curiously, the old ladies never asked that she should pay them a visit.

The Misses Perkinpine lived very well indeed, and Fred Sheldon was not long in discovering it. When he called there he never could get away without eating some of the vast hunks of gingerbread and enormous pieces of thick, luscious pie, of which Fred, like all boys, was very fond.

There was no denying that Fred had established himself as a favorite in that peculiar household, as he well deserved to be.

[Pg 19]

On the afternoon succeeding his switching at school he reached home and did his chores, whistling cheerily in the meanwhile, and thinking of little else than the great circus on the morrow, when he suddenly stopped in surprise upon seeing a carriage standing in front of the gate.

Just then his mother called him to the house and explained:

"Your Uncle William is quite ill, Fred, and has sent for me. You know he lives twelve miles away, and it will take us a good while to get there; if you are afraid to stay here alone you can go with us."

Fred was too quick to trip himself in that fashion. To-morrow was circus day, and if he went to his Uncle Will's, he might miss it.

"Miss Annie asked me this morning to go over and see them again," he said, alluding to one of the Misses Perkinpine, "and they'll be mighty glad to have me there."

"That will be much better, for you will be so near home that you can come over in the morning and see that everything is right, but I'm afraid you'll eat too much pie and cake and pudding and preserves."

"I ain't afraid," laughed Fred, who kissed his mother good-by and saw the carriage vanish down the road in the gloom of the gathering darkness. Then he busied himself with the chores, locked up the house and put everything in shape preparatory to going away.

He was still whistling, and was walking rapidly toward the gate, when he was surprised and a little startled by[Pg 20] observing the figure of a man, standing on the outside, as motionless as a stone, and no doubt watching him.

He appeared to be ill-dressed, and Fred at once set him down as one of those pests of society known as a tramp, who had probably stopped to get something to eat.

"What do you want?" asked the lad, with an air of bravery which he was far from feeling, as he halted within two or three rods of the unexpected guest, ready to retreat if it should become necessary.

"I want you to keep a civil tongue in your head," was the answer, in a harsh rasping voice.

"I didn't mean to be uncivil," was the truthful reply of Fred, who believed in courtesy to every one.

"Who lives here, then?" asked the other in the same gruff voice.

"My mother, Mrs. Mary Sheldon, and myself, but my mother isn't at home."